Here is what happened.

I was eighteen years old before I open my eyes for the first time. Until that moment all that I had ever known was the virtual reality pumped directly into my brain by the ship’s artificial intelligence. As my body developed with the help of the machines, so my mind was carefully tended by machines.

The training programs that filled my mind were incoherent and strange for my woken mind, as dreams half-remembered. In the dreams they taught me everything I would need in my new life and in my selected career of biologist. The mainframe even explained to me how my mind had been carefully examined as it developed during the first years of basic education and my DNA mapped until it was certain that this career would not only be one in which I could benefit the community, but one that would be better suited for me. And so I grew up amidst animals, learning the mechanisms of life and death, the language of genes.

Everything was silent and peaceful as we slept undisturbed by the troubles of reality. There was no day or night, just an endless moment of peaceful contemplation on the beach interrupted only by the lessons of the life that would come. We waited patiently for the day the ship would utter the worlds: It’s time to begin, create the world.

   Then, I woke up. I saw the real world.

   I come to the world amidst flames and screams. There is a woman at my side helping me get out of the artificial womb, out from the warm comfort of the artificial amniotic fluid and into the harsh cold of reality; her hands yank free the cables that connect me to the machines that had kept me alive until now. Our bodies are covered in slick amniotic fluid; I vomit more of it on the floor as she helps me get up.

The sounds of sirens come from all around us in several different intonations as if multiples alarms fought for supremacy. The stringent smell of flames floods the main room. I throw up two lungful of the pink slime. I arc my back and cough violently as my body struggles to free itself from the fluids in my lungs, struggling to breathe for itself for the first time in all my life. I shiver and coughs, the air around me is hot, searing my lungs.

The girl don’t give me time to properly recover, putting my left arm around her shoulder and practically dragging me with her towards the exit, my feet struggling to walk as my mind had to contend with too much new inputs at the same time.

   I wipe at my stinging eyes; my senses overwhelmed and confused by the sudden influx of information. I had been learning the basics of gene therapy to treat radiation damage in a moment and in the next I’m suddenly being dragged out of my artificial womb, assaulted by the searing heat of the fire, the blaring sirens, and the stringent smoke. I can see similar confusion on the faces of my naked brethren as we struggle to give our first steps away from the conflagration that follow us closely behind.

Screams came to us as we cross into another room. People shouting, wailing in pain as the flames touches their bodies. The crackle of flames, followed by loud pops as some of the artificial wombs burst open in a hurry. Behind it all was an oddly serene voice telling us to stay calm, to make our way orderly toward the exit.

We pack ourselves into the narrow passageway between the empty chambers like animals, struggling to go through the only exit. Slick bodies come into contact with mine, more of my senses overwhelmed with bizarre, chaotic newness. I take short, quick breaths as my mind begs for the comforting order of the virtual world.  

In the distance, someone yells “Fire!” and the already tight space becomes a horrific crush of human frenzy, of elbows and knees and shoving. Strangers shrieks at the top of their lungs.

The girl holds me close. We cling to one another as if it could somehow protect us from the flames that consume the ship. Around us, the column of flesh trapped between the vats flows slowly in one direction. For a moment I’m entranced by the flames that consume the ship, jets of flame erupt from ruptured gas pipes.  

Panic vibrates through the crowded mess, sparking from skin to skin as the shrieks of those burning alive reaches us ahead of the horrid smell. I lose hold of the girl as someone pushes between us. I watch her face disappear—and then her outstretched hand. The crowd pushes me toward some unseen exit.

I look over my shoulders and around me almost desperately for the girl and watch the glow of flames brightens, reflecting off the wet walls to either side. I can almost hear the voice of the ship speaking about the process through which certain animals will imprint after birth on the first being they see.

We fall through the exit—back into trampled mud and rainy night. I claw my way, shivering, across a tangle of the filthy and fleeing. And through the panic, I find myself dwelling on my years of training, on what was expected of me, but there is nothing that can help us now.  

The night and rain assault us with frigid air, the flames rising up all around us seem almost eldritch in its ability to defy both the cold and falling rain. Colorful chemical fires reached to the skies as the flames reaches into the tanks and stocks of the ship, consuming in a matter of moments what had been sent with us from Earth at great cost.  

Fierce and terrifying like a monster of legend, destroying everything in its path.

More of us stumble out into the mud by the moment, coughing, steaming, and tripping over those still scurrying out of the way. Beyond them, the screams of those who would never join us reverberates through the vat module. They cry out for help, but naked and without tools there is little that we could do besides bear witness to their first and last moments alive.

So few of us seems to have made it out. Fifty or less, mere kids. Naked, covered in mud, all of us coughing and fighting to breath as our lungs take in air for the first time. Most of us struggle to get away from the module, but a few try to walk back in to save others or to rescue important cargo before they are consumed by the flames. I search through them as they walk past by me, looking for the face of my savior, needing to find something in this new existence that makes sense.

I find her huddled by the exit, shivering and covered in filth, her arms are red, burned and she was struggling to cool them with pooled water. Our eyes meet. Her eyes are sharp, determined, hard green. Bathed by the light of flames she looks almost like a devi.

We collapse together without speaking and hold one another, our chins resting on each other’s shoulders, our bodies quivering from the cold and fear.

“Look!” someone yells and quickly more voices are screaming, pointing towards the sky.

I hear feet slapping against the mud as fellow colonists run from the dying ship as fiery lances fall from the skies, hitting the structure of the Arjuna with thunderous force, spreading even more flames, sending shockwaves that make the ground tremble. The girl pulls me up and towards the jungle in search of any protection. My gaze is locked into the ship as it dies, the growing inferno that consumed its innards, the sound of cracking steel like the wails of death from my brethren.

“Artillery,” she croaked, her voice raspy from coughing and disuse. I turn to her, watch her wiry neck constrict as she swallows forcefully. “They are targeting the ship, not us,” she whispers.

I nod, but my attention is pulled back to the flames. A dark form moves across the fire, arms waving, and the silhouette of dripping flesh visible like a thing sloughing its shadow. One of the walls explodes from the heat and smoke quickly swallows the form. Only the moans of the dying and the cracks of the ship remain as the last testament for what had been supposed to be a shinning vanguard of a new age of human glory.

The girl pulls me towards the forest. I turn to her and away from the dying. Large drops of rain spot the mud on her chest with streaks of pink exposed flesh. I seem incapable of letting go of her hand, as if everything would unravel into pure chaos at any moment.

We huddle together in the middle of the night, shivering of cold, but too afraid of coming close to the ship or even trying to light a new fire. Waves of worried rumors and gossips flow through the group, as confused colonists try to make sense of what just happened.

Slowly some form of orders start to rise between us, first and foremost the triage of our wounded.  There are apparently three of us in total that could be said to be something close to a physician: A biologist, a veterinarian, and a psychologist.

The real medics, nurses, and so many other specialties seem to have been left behind inside the Arjuna. Completely obliterated on the first moments of the attack.

To make matters worse, our only equipment are the few first aid kits that a few, more level-headed individuals managed to grab as they rushed out of their artificial wombs. So we treated the wounded under the light of a few flashlights, treating their deep cuts and appalling burns as best as we could with little more than ointment and bandages.

I hear dozen of rushed, whispered prayers for those above of us that the sonic defenses around the camp ground would keep working. We all had learned about the strange and terrible predators that inhabited Artemis during our virtual infancy, the photos of those creatures suddenly turned from beautiful and exotic to terrifying. They are asuras coming to get us.  

A few fellow colonists volunteer to brave the flames and the smoke to run back into the Arjuna to savage anything else that the flames hadn’t yet devoured. The girl—my dirty savior—had been the first to volunteer to such a mission, but I force her to stay and let me take a look at her burns.

 “Is it hurting?” I ask. My voice sound raspy and foreign to my own ears as I use it for the first time outside my dreams.

The girl shakes her head. Her hair is streaked with mud and dripping with rain.

“We can’t stay here” she tells me as I apply some ointment to her burns, I flinch at the sight of her hands. I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure she will have permanent damage.

“I heard some people saying it was lightning, some bizarre storm,” the boy next in line says, he has extensive slashes on his legs, caked with mud. I watch a rivulet of water course down his neck, plowing a track through the mud in his strong chest. He turns to me and offers me his hand.

“I’m Karan,” he says. “A mechanic.”

 “Nisha,” the girl beside me whisper. She continues to stare into her burned palms as she says it. The ointment gives her some relief from the pain. “Security,” she adds, after a pause.

“What about you?” Karan asks.

Several more colonists run by, looking for something to do or somewhere to go. It’s almost surreal as the screams and shouts from mere moments ago have turned to panting punctuated with only the occasional coughs.

“My name’s Rohan,” I tell him. I stand, shaking the mud off my hands before helping the girl stand. “Biologist.”

“This wasn’t lightning,” she says with certainty.

She turns to us, her face growing grim as the flames of the ship dimmed. “This was an artillery attack.” She waves an arm at the destruction on all sides, at the dozen metal buildings on fire and illuminating the darkness beyond. “The Arjuna’s first mission was to reinforce and protect the landing zone, by now it should have been strong enough to withstand most natural disasters.”

Karan faces us. “Impossible,” he says. “There is no one in this planet that could have done this! We are alone here.”

“And what if we aren’t?” Nisha shook her head. “What if there was some intelligent life form that we couldn’t find? Something advanced enough to create munitions that could pierce the hull of Arjuna?”

“They combed this planet with probes,” Karan replies almost immediately. “We would have found any species like that.”

“We can find out tomorrow,” I decree forcing both of them down. “Now I need to treat your wounds. We have an entire camp full of wounded, frightened people.”

She set off toward the smoldering ship. I watch her bare feet throw up twin sprays of mud, her bandaged arms dangling to the sides, her naked form blending in with all the people running through puddles, hacking and breathing hard.

Karan and I glanced at each other; the streaks of grime on his face did little to conceal the worry in his furrowed brow. He coughs once into a fist and slap me on the shoulder.

“Anything I can do to help?” he asks.

I give him the flashlight to hold as I examine his legs, trying to clean most of the blood and the mud before covering it with bandages. He does his best to ignore the pain, refusing to take any of our limited supply of analgesics.

Eventually the sun rises over the horizon.

“It’s time to begin,” Karan whispers at my side. “Create the world.”